The UK government's austerity measures brought in after the credit crunch led public authorities to seek better value from existing PFI agreements and this in turn has led to a significant rise in disputes under PFIcontracts between authorities, project companies and subcontractors.

The factual matrix of the Portsmouth City Council highways case, while one of only a very small number to reach the courts, was typical of many other PFI projects.

Most public bodies, and probably their contractual partners, prefer to avoid the sometimes unflattering exposure brought by litigation so once again adjudication is a natural route to take given its confidentiality.

The PFI market is now mature as are many of the assets procured through its use. Lifecycle expenditure is an important consideration for project companies and their assetmaintenancesubcontractors.

The long-term nature of PFI agreements (typically at least 25 years), means that the market isn't going to disappear despite the slowness of government to develop replacement models for PFI-style projects. Whether the current propensity to disputes will continue, only time will tell.

This article was originally published here on 8 March 2017 by ICE. It was written by Patrick Waterhouse - a construction adjudicator and is on ICE's panel of adjudicators and panel of conciliators/mediators.